


tell me where your love lies

by ambassador319



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Before Season 5, Clarktavia - Freeform, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, after season 4, i guess, i wrote this as platonic but ship it if you want to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 20:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15648093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambassador319/pseuds/ambassador319
Summary: In which Octavia is not Blodreina; in which Clarke asks her to dance; in which the two of them are the last two people left on Earth, and they learn to live.(i love their friendship, and season five destroyed me)title- and indeed, fic- inspiration taken from the song “love lies” by khalid & normani





	tell me where your love lies

**Author's Note:**

> Madi might exist in the universe of this fic- I’m not sure. This oneshot is set a few months after Priamfaya, when Clarke and Octavia have only recently found Eden. They may still have yet to find her, or perhaps she isn’t there at all. Whichever is best for your own imaginings :)
> 
> Oh, and assume Octavia Blake has become a Natblida for this fic. I have no real plot reason why she would stay on Earth with Clarke JUST ACCEPT IT OKAY?!

Octavia glances up at her, just long enough for Clarke to see her scowl in its entirety. "Before you get any ideas, Clarke, I don't dance."

From where Clarke is standing, Octavia looks every bit the girl who the Grounders called _death from above_ : she’s all shadows and narrowed eyes, stony face, as she refocuses on her flint-stone. Her sword's been sharpened already, but Indra must have taught her to cherish a weapon like a child. Octavia dotes over it, really. There's no one to kill anymore, yet she won't let it leave her side.

Clarke lets out a rather disgruntled huff.

Yes, _Skairipa_ remains stuck in Octavia's system, the same way _Wanheda_ boils sometimes in Clarke’s blood. They are both killers. They’re not even explicitly friends. Only months ago, any wrong step of Clarke's would've landed her on the point of the sword Octavia loves so much.

But, fuck it. They're the last two people left on Earth! And Clarke Griffin doesn't want to be a killer anymore.

"Come _on_ ," She urges, and then she does something not even Dropship-Era Clarke would have dared do- she grabs Octavia's hand, and she tugs her to her feet, and she doesn't let go. "Dance with me."

The other girl is _fuming_ at her. She's wearing the kind of glare that would have brought even hardened Conclave contestants to their knees, but Clarke meets it evenly. If Octavia was going to kill her, she'd have done it by now.

"You don't give me orders, Clarke," Octavia hisses. "Not anymore."

That stings. Clarke blinks, thrown, but not surprised. "It isn't a command," She says. God, does it feel good to say that to someone. "I just- want you to."

Skairipa scoffs a cold, disdainful scoff. She replies, "I don't _care_ what you want, Clarke," and she snatches her hand out of Clarke's, and she turns to walk away, and for some reason the nickname only Bellamy ever got to use tumbles out Clarke's mouth.

"O, please," She pleads.

Octavia halts. Clarke sees her shoulder blades stiffen, her hackles rise yet higher. She almost reminds Clarke of the deer they'd found that first day on the Ground- frozen in place, still as stone- as it met the delinquents' eyes.

The silence hangs between them for a moment, suspended.

Without turning around, Octavia demands, “Why?"

Clarke exhales through her nose. This girl is obstinate as fuck. It’s a wonder Bellamy had deluded himself into thinking he could reason with her, back when Pike had killed Lincoln, when Bellamy was still trying to work his way into his sister’s heart through logic.

“Because there’s no one to fight anymore,” Clarke tells her, “No Grounders, no Skaikru. And we have music, and I’m happy, damnit. I want to dance with someone.”

 _Skairipa_ says nothing. With a sigh, Clarke continues, “Because there’s nobody else left on the planet. _You’re_ my people now, Octavia.”

There are a thousand things that could have thrown themselves at that. The moment would have shattered under the weight of those past vengeances- Mount Weather, the TonDC bombing, _I’ll fight this war with you but after that we’re done,_ Lincoln, Lexa, Bellamy, _I’m doing the best I can well that’s not good enough,_ the bunker, Priamfaya- had Octavia not turned, lifted her chin as though squaring up to some fearsome enemy, taken Clarke’s hand, and told her, “I won’t forgive you.”

"I don't expect you to," Clarke replies automatically. A  _pauna_ is wrestling with her heart. After a beat, she dares ask, “...But?”

Octavia rolls her eyes, yet incredibly, impossibly, there is a threat of a smile tugging at the edge of her mouth. “But...I’ll dance with you.”

The grin grows and grows on Clarke’s face until it feels wide enough to split open the sky, and a new song begins, and it’s the start of something. Something better. It is.

_waste the day and spend the night_

Octavia can’t dance. She fumbles through her steps as though she’s never learnt the intricate footwork of swordplay before, and she shies from Clarke, and she seems altogether almost overwhelmingly like a sixteen year old at her first school ball. It's shockingly uncharacteristic of the swift-footed _Skairipa_. Clarke is about to tease her before she realises- unlike the rest of the Ark kids, Octavia would never have been taught to dance. The only dance she’d ever attended would have been the one Bellamy snuck her out to; the dance where the Guard finally found her, and sent her to the Skybox; the dance that floated her mom.

So Clarke doesn’t comment on it. She guides one of Octavia’s hands to her shoulder, holds the other up in a traditional waltzing grip, and leans the two of them into the song.

_underneath the sunrise_

It’s a ridiculous dancing position, particularly for a pop song from the 2010s. But Clarke and Octavia make it work. The two step on each other’s feet. They push too hard, or they pull too little; one stays solid and steady, while the other shoves sharp and shy; and in the end, it works. The legendary _Skairipa_ and _Wanheda_  dance a barely passable (by middle-school Ark standards) dance, in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere. Their boots slip in the mud, their braids trip over and out of shape. They are artless. 

And it is only the two of them, and the valley, and the sky, and the empty wide-open planet, and there is nothing to hear or fear or resent them when their laughter finally breaks free, wild, unrestrained, like a dropship tumbling down to Earth.

_show me where your love lies~_

 

**Author's Note:**

> CLARKE GRIFFIN. OCTAVIA BLAKE. YOU BOTH HAD BETTER EXPLAIN YOURSELVES FOR YOUR RELATIONSHIP IN SEASON FIVE. I EXPECT A RECONCILIATION IN S6, OR ELSE


End file.
